Resources for building a Visual Studio plug-in?

Question

Hi,

I'd like to build a pretty simple plug-in for Visual Studio, but I don't really know how this has to be done. Is this doable in (non-managed) C++?

I'd like to know what resources you'd recommend me...

Thanks.

Answer 1

I've never tried, so I don't know about doing it in C++, but this website has loads of information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsx/default.aspx

Answer 2

A good place to start would be this tutorial:

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/mgold/AddIns11292005015631AM/AddIns.aspx

Answer 3

DevExpress has a free plug-in called DXCore which provides some nice abstractions upon which to then build other plug-ins...you might look into that.

Answer 4

Do you really want to do it in unmanaged code? DevExpress has a nice free library to develop visual studio plugins but it's managed. This is what they use to develop Refactor and coderush

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Visual_Studio_Add-in/DXCore/

It seems the underlying API is kind of messy. As far as I know this is the easiest way.

Answer 5

Found this MSDN tutorial: Creating Add-ins Using Visual C++. Thanks Matt.

Answer 6

The DXCore from DevExpress is a wonderful library for basing all sorts of plugins. Feel free to drop by the IDE Tools Forums and more specifically the DXCore plugin forum and ask for any help you might need. :)

I'm not so sure about unmanaged C++ but I know for certain that the DXCore supports Plugin creation in any managed language.